Repeated charges of illegal searches, violence, racial profiling, racial slurs and intimidation against Lt. Daniel Sbarra and his team have cost the city more than $1.5 million in settlements
Victims say Sbarra is a 'ticking time bomb' as the Brooklyn North Narcotics lieutenant is involved in 15 lawsuits. The NYPD says charges are meritless and that narcs are often targetsA Daily News investigation of Sbarra and his team of cops exposed repeated charges of illegal searches, unprovoked violence, racial profiling, racial slurs and intimidation that cost the city more than $1.5 million in settlements.
NYPD veteran Daniel Sbarra donned his dress blues on Aug. 2, 2011, and headed to One Police Plaza — where Commissioner Raymond Kelly, a promotion and a pay raise awaited.
Kelly shook his hand. And targets of Sbarra’s crude and costly police tactics were left shaking their heads.
The Brooklyn North Narcotics sergeant with 15 years on the job made lieutenant despite years of on-the-job conduct some say raises serious questions about whether he should still have his badge.
The News found Sbarra’s NYPD record, dating back to 2004, was more jailhouse than precinct house. He cut his teeth in the Bronx before working some of Brooklyn’s toughest neighborhoods, including Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick.
“There’s a reason Brooklyn North Narcotics are called the ‘Body Snatchers,’” said civil rights lawyer Paul Hale, whose client recently won a $75,000 settlement, saying he was twice wrongfully arrested by Sbarra’s team. “They don’t care if you’re innocent or guilty. They just want to make arrests at any cost.”
In Sbarra’s case, court documents revealed an assortment of jaw-dropping charges. Among the allegations:
- He and a second cop, with black tape over their badge numbers, called a young Brooklyn barbershop owner a “n-----” during a traffic stop in Bushwick. Settlement: $19,500, including $1,000 Sbarra had to pay out of his own pocket after the city, in a rare move, refused to represent him. Sbarra was found guilty of departmental charges related to the incident, but “Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly dismissed all charges,” Sbarra said in a 2012 deposition.
- He strip-searched a black city paralegal, pulling the man’s underwear down with his boot, at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s 81st Precinct stationhouse. The suspect was charged with marijuana possession; his lawyer later suggested the drugs were planted. Settlement: $30,000.
- His officers brutally beat a Brooklyn man, yanking out a handful of dreadlocks and bashing his head into a window at the 81st Precinct stationhouse, as the man’s 11-year-old son watched in horror. The little boy was recovering from leukemia. Settlement: $50,000.
-He insisted Hale’s client, who already lost a tooth in an arrest a year earlier, swallowed drugs on a Bushwick street. The Brooklyn man was left handcuffed to a bed at Woodhull Hospital for seven hours before being released because no drugs were found. Sbarra never followed up on the case with the hospital, even though he is required to by law. Settlement: $75,000.
Kennie Williams, 28, was on the second floor of his uncle’s Bed-Stuy brownstone in 2010 when, he says, a group of gun-waving officers dragged him to the basement. Williams was then charged with two other men found in the building basement surrounded by cocaine, marijuana and scales. Detective Robert Livingston testified that Williams was found in the basement, not the second floor. Williams became lost in the legal system and said his repeated court appearances cost him his job as a Meals on Wheels driver.
He thought about copping a plea: “I was frightened. I was gonna take it, but my lawyer said, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”
It was good advice. Eighteen months later, the case was thrown out because an assistant district attorney at the Brooklyn DA’s office said Livingston’s “memory became imprecise” about where Williams was arrested, court documents show.
Williams sued and won a $60,000 settlement.
Speaking outside his house earlier this month, Livingston initially called Williams’ defense attorney a liar for putting on record the detective “testified falsely to the grand jury” — insisting, “I never testified to anything in court.”
When The News showed him a partial transcript of his Feb. 2008 grand jury testimony, he copped to it, then declined to comment further. But he did say he was not disciplined in the case.
Cases that didn’t stick were commonplace in Brooklyn North Narcotics.
The Brooklyn DA’s office declined to prosecute more than 1,000 of their arrests in both 2010 and 2011 — about 10% of the borough’s total declined prosecutions.
Brooklynite John Spears, 44, says he twice had his civil rights violated by Sbarra’s team.
In 2009, Detective Frank Galati and two other officers who worked under Sbarra jumped out of a van and threw him to the ground, knocking out a tooth, his suit claimed. They charged him with tampering with evidence and resisting arrest after a strip search came up empty. The criminal charges were dismissed three months later.
One year later, Spears was walking home with some groceries after work at a VA hospital when Galati stopped him again.
“We’re going to get you this time,” the detective promised, according to court documents. “Where are the drugs?”
“I saw him swallow it,” Sbarra said, the court papers show.
Spears was taken to Woodhull Hospital and handcuffed to a bed for seven hours while waiting to get an X-ray of his stomach. No drugs were found, and he was released without charges roughly 15 hours later.
There was Robert Stephens, 56, who recalls heading to a corner bodega in 2010 when five plainclothes officers jumped him.
“Where’s it at?” he remembered them howling.
The ex-Marine told The News he was carrying his apartment keys but no ID, so he brought the officers to his home. Instead of using his keys, Sbarra ordered his men to smash their way inside with a battering ram.
The cops ransacked the apartment, held Stephens overnight, and released him without charges.
But this time Internal Affairs began looking at the case, and Sbarra pleaded guilty to a number of departmental charges, including having performed the unauthorized search that cost Sbarra 20 vacation days.
Eli was sitting in a car with his uncle when the man was arrested.
Cruz rushed to the precinct, upset and desperate to see his son — a recovering leukemia patient. Instead, he ran into Sbarra.
“You’re gonna have to f------ wait,” the sergeant said, according to Cruz. “When I’m ready I’ll let you know.”
When Cruz demanded to see his son, he said a group of officers descended upon him — punching and kicking the outmanned victim, and then shoving his wife into a wall. The officers ripped out a handful of his dreadlocks and smashed his head into a window, Cruz said. As the dad was led away in cuffs, he saw Eli in another room, crying.
Cruz, 34, who once served seven years in prison on an assault charge, faced charges including criminal mischief — for breaking the window with his head. He collected a $50,000 settlement from a lawsuit. But the money didn’t erase the hard feelings.
Ex-Marine Robert Stephens, 56, said he was heading to a corner bodega in 2010 when five plainclothes officers jumped him.
They threw him against the wall yelling, “Where’s it at?” he said.
Stephens was carrying his keys but no ID, so he said he brought the officers to his Bed-Stuy apartment. But instead of letting him use his keys, Stephens said Sbarra ordered his men to smash the door with a battering ram.
“They wouldn’t let us in the apartment while they searched it. I kept asking if they had a warrant," said daughter Jacqualine Stephens, 20.
The cops ransacked the apartment and took a North Face jacket with the family's $1,000 tax refund in the pocket, held Stephens overnight, and released him without charges.
Stephens said he got his money back - but not his jacket. Robert sued the city and received a $12,500 settlement. But Jacqualine filed a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board and Internal Affairs caught onto the case.
Lamel Roberson , 29, said he was driving home from his barbershop in 2004 when Sbarra and Officer Ralph Pacheco pulled him over on Bushwick Ave. between Stewart and Conway Sts.
Roberson said he showed his license and registration, but instead of running it through the system, the officers, wearing black tape over their badge numbers, dragged him out of his vehicle.
Roberson said he was pressed against the passenger side door, his arm twisted painfully behind his back, as the officers searched his car and repeatedly called him a “n-----,” asking, “Where are the drugs and guns at?”
Nothing illegal turned up, but Sbarra and Pacheco nonetheless called for back up.
Roberson got an $18,500 settlement for his lawsuit — with the city making the exceptionally rare move of declining to represent Sbarra and forcing him to pay $1,000 out of his own pocket.
But Roberson told The News, “It can’t make up for the disrespect they did to me.”
City paralegal Mark Labrew says he was on his way home from work in 2006 when Sbarra and another officer “profiled” and “demeaned” him. Labrew, who is black, said he asked the pair for their names and badge numbers — and they threw him against a gate and frisked him.
Labrew was taken to the 81st Precinct stationhouse in Bed-Stuy, where he said Officer John Kealy — whom he previously sued four years ago for wrongful arrest — spotted him.
Kealy was caught lying under oath in that arrest, which ended with Kealy getting disciplined and Labrew getting a $125,000 settlement. Labrew says after Kealy spoke to Sbarra, cops started calling him names like “f------ animal” and “retarded monkey.”
Sbarra strip-searched him, pulling Labrew’s underwear down with his boot, according to court documents.
Labrew was charged with marijuana possession and eventually given an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, a plea deal that means charges are dismissed if the defendant stays out of trouble for a short period of time.
His lawsuit settled for $30,000.
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